The Hunt
by Arina Ketchum
Summary: A one-shot story about a Pokemon hunter. No canon characters in here, just let your imagination run wild with this.


Author's Notes: This is a one-shot story I did for a contest (which I later did not win!) I hope you enjoy, and that your imagination goes wild while reading it!

The Hunt

By Arina Ketchum

The night was cold and damp.

He shouldn't be out here. He should be in a nice warm bed, or even a sleeping bag, somewhere with a roof and four walls.

Instead, he was out here, in the cold and rain, chasing a demon. A Pokémon that had been terrorizing the locals for over a year and had become legendary in both stories and imagination, in size and terror.

"He'll take off with your children!"

"He'll eat your pets for dinner!"

In truth, none of these claims had really been verified. Children had wandered off without letting their parents know, and returned to a frantic village later. A few pets _had_ disappeared at several different times, but no one could pinpoint the blame exactly on the demon. But the roars and screams surrounding the village night after night finally forced them to call in an expert to deal with it. He'd come on the off-chance of some real excitement and not some tall tales. If the footprints in some of the farmers' fields weren't hoaxes, this thing was BIG.

So here he was. Third night stalking this monster. He wouldn't have thought it was this hard to track a Pokémon so large once you were on its trail, but either this one had some moves no one had seen before, or it was just playing with him. He'd find evidence of it being on the outskirts of the village, and then it would disappear. Find. Disappear. The first night he thought he had it, and the weather had been perfect for tracking it. _Somehow_ it had gotten away, and he thought he'd scared it away, knowing something was hunting it. The second night he'd tracked it deep into the forest, and fallen into a very nice pit of quicksand. How quicksand was in the middle of a forest, he had no idea, but there it was, and he was sinking in it. Panic would kill him. Fortunately, his years of training had banished panic from his mind. Using a rope, and his Marshtomp to hold one end and act as leverage, he threw it over a tree branch above him before he was waist-deep. Utilizing his entire upper-body strength, he managed to pull himself out. The sand fought the battle he waged, but he won in the end after an hour of pulling. He decided that was the end of any searching that night, and exhausted, headed to the bed the natives had made up for him.

What time was it? He brushed his long wet bangs away from his eyes. His watch said two in the morning, but his head said it felt later. His body still ached from the previous night, but he had to press on. There was a good deal of money hinging on the capture of said monster, probably some fame if this was a rare, even unknown Pokémon. He wasn't greedy, or interested in fame per se, but the scent of money kept the bill collectors off his back, long enough for him to continue his exploits undisturbed.

The noise of a tiny animal scurrying by him shook him out of his reverie of fame and fortune. A Rattata, no doubt. Had he scared it, or had something else made it run off, he wondered. He pushed on. No sign of its tracks tonight, although he was sure he'd seen some when he'd started out at twilight. Of course it had been light then, and the showers didn't start until midnight.

A familiar roar made him wheel around. In horror, he realized it was coming from near the village. A woman's scream of pain followed. Men shouting accompanied her scream.

He took off at a full run. He didn't think it would head back to the village if it smelled him in the area! Why had he told them he'd take care of it? Why didn't he tell the village elders to be on alert, just in case?

He made it back to the center of the village, where some inhabitants were sleepily standing around, some more alert than others.

"Where is it? What happened?" He cried urgently.

One of the men raced forward. Jace, if he remembered correctly.

"It is a boy! The gods have blessed us this night! We have a boy!" Jace grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him happily. Jace then ran off to spread the news.

He cursed himself. False alarm. No one was hurt; although he was sure Jace's wife couldn't say the same thing at the moment.

But that roar hadn't been faked. That was real. Where had it come from?

"Come on, I know you're out there." He resisted calling out his Staraptor, fearing it might "disappear" during a mid-air scouting mission. "Call out again, I'll get you this time."

As if to answer the challenge, the monster roared once more.

"Do you need help, my friend?" one of the elders called out.

"No, I've got him now!" he said as he raced off again. It had come from the east for sure, in one of the far rice fields outside of the tight circle of huts that was the village.

"Staraptor! Let's go!" he pulled a Pokeball from his belt, and his flying Pokémon emerged. He jumped on its back and they took off into the sky.

"Binoculars, binoculars…." He dug around his pack. You wouldn't think giant binoculars would be hard to lose in a pack, but he'd done it on several occasions, especially when he'd had to pack up in a hurry and move on a moment's notice.

There. His dirty fingernail slide across the plastic covering the glass eyepieces. Swiftly wrapping his hand around them, he pulled them out of the pack too hastily, losing sweets and other essentials that he couldn't replace until he returned to civilization.

But those were nothing compared to the capture that was so close now he could taste it.

"All right, beast," he pulled the plastic caps off the lenses and scanned below him with the binoculars as they flew over swampy rice paddies. "Stay put like a good Pokémon..."

He saw something below that didn't look like it belonged in a rice field. He ordered Staraptor to circle back, but as he did, a bolt of hot bright light came up from the ground and hit Staraptor full in the chest, KO'ing the bird instantly. He didn't even have time to swear as they fell straight to Earth.

They hit and tumbled away from each other. Staraptor, if not dead, was out cold. He, on the other hand, tumbled the wrong way off Staraptor and dislocated his shoulder, then landed face-first in the mud.

Damn it. This was not the position he wanted to be in! He spit mud and water out of his mouth and held his shoulder as he attempted to stand up. His pack was nowhere to be seen. He'd had the foresight to put the binoculars around his neck though, and fortunately, while undamaged, were going to leave a nasty bruise on his chest from the fall. He winced as he tapped the Ultra Balls on his belt. Good, all three had stayed put.

He pulled Staraptor's Pokeball out again, and stumbled through the mud and rice plants to his Pokémon. Staraptor didn't move. This was not the place or time to be determining Staraptor's condition. He knew when to give up the chase for the night, and this was _definitely_ it.

With his good arm holding his bad shoulder, he winced as he held out his other arm. "Staraptor-"

He stopped when he realized he wasn't alone. The heavy breathing behind him was a dead giveaway.

He cursed. The beast had beaten him at his own game with a sneak attack. He had become the hunted now.

In a show of triumph of power and strength, the Pokémon behind him roared to the sky.

Now. Do it now. While it was showing off!

Quickly, using the landscape to his advantage, he slid between the massive creature's legs and ended up near his gigantic white tail.

The creature was looking for him. It took a step toward Staraptor.

Now or never. The money demanded victory.

He brushed mud out of his eyes, and took aim.

"POKEBALL, GO!"

The End.


End file.
